Homily Second Sunday of Easter

While I was in Rome, I was exposed to incredible works of art from many periods of history. One of my favorite artists is Caravaggio, a painter of the early 17th century. His personal life
was a mess but his paintings such as the Calling of St. Matthew and the Martyrdom of St. Matthew, were phenomenal. His use of the contrast between light and darkness was dramatic and powerfully expressive. I placed on the parish’s facebook page
for you to see, the image of another of his works, The Incredulity of Thomas. It was found on the walls of a little church in a French town and only in 1999 was discovered to be an original Caravaggio.
It shows Thomas with his finger poking into the wound in Christ’s side and leaning over to examine it aggressively with what one critic described as a “clinical and forensic determination”1 – like you see them examine evidence in shows like Bones, or CSI. It is very different from earlier art depicting a Thomas timid before the risen Christ, barely touching the wound. And all of this is markedly
different from the Thomas we see in John’s Gospel, who never seems to touch the wounds at all, but responds immediately with an act of faith, “My Lord and my God!” (a response I learned as a child to say silently at the consecration of the bread and
wine at Mass).
The painting was prophetic, however, as modern thought has embraced doubt and skepticism rather than faith as the best way to reach truth. What is referred to as a philosophy of “modernism”
develops especially around the turn of the 20th century with the rise of the industrial age and the growth of cities, followed by the horrors of the first world war. Modernism is marked by the rejection of certainty and also, as one article stated, rejecting
“the idea of a compassionate, all-powerful creator.2”
A Catholic thinker of our time, Gil Bailie, speaking of Caravaggio’s painting says, “In contrast to the Thomas of John’s Gospel, this quintessentially modern Thomas appears to be
looking – not for proof of the Resurrection – but for confirmation of his doubts about it. The artist has 1 Baile, Gil, Cornerstoneforum.org, Easter 2013
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism
brilliantly captured what was to become the spirit of
the modern age – a skepticism of the will
masquerading as an honest search for truth. 3”
While the scientific method and critical
analysis have transformed our understanding of our
world, these are not the only ways of knowing or
discovering truth. In fact Jesus seems to imply in
the gospel today that there is an advantage to
knowing by faith. While we might consider blessed
those who were there to see him in that locked
room, Jesus’ reply to Thomas’ proclamation of faith
is to say, “Blessed are those who have not seen and
have believed” Could it be that coming to know
through shared testimony and through grace, by
faith, and not just through empirical (CSI kind of)
evidence, can lead to a deeper knowing?
To know Jesus as risen through faith, we must
still experience his resurrected life ourselves. This
is not a countable, measurable fact, but is truly an
experience to which sinners and saints through the
ages have given testimony. We experience
evidence of Christ Risen in the holiness that has
manifested itself over the centuries, inspiring and
renewing the Church. We ourselves become
witnesses of the Resurrection as our own lives are
liberated by God’s love and we experience rebirth.
…Yet many today would consider that naïve, antiintellectual,
outdated. This kind of knowing
through faith has fallen out of favor in the modern
age. Doubt, especially of any authority who would
claim to teach truth, is the norm today. The
authority we trust most is our self. What gives
authority to a belief is that it feels right to me. So I
become my own authority, my own judge of what is
right and wrong. It is not coincidence that this
sounds just like the temptation in the Garden of
Eden, to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil so as to be like, to know like God. This is
no less true of Catholics than of non-religious
people.
Now don’t misunderstand. I do not in any
way reject science. It comes from God. Nor do I
promote unthinking, uncritical belief just because
an authority has declared it. But I challenge the
arrogant belief that we don’t need to seek the
guidance of our compassionate, all-powerful God. I
challenge the rejection of faith as anti-intellectual
and the practical dismissal of the working of the
Holy Spirit in the Church as Christ promised.
Brothers and sisters, if we believe that Christ
is in his Church and that the Holy Spirit faithfully
guides and corrects it, then this would guide the
way we think critically and the way we come to our
own moral positions in our lives. The Church has
always taught that the ultimate criterion for
deciding is the well formed conscience. But what is
forming our conscience? Do you know not only
what the Church teaches about current issues but
why the Church teaches it? Have you done the
work of learning the basis for the Church’s teaching
on essential issues of our time such as abortion,
capital punishment, contraception, immigration
reform, and the current hot topic of same sex
marriage?
Very well meaning Catholics are discussing
the issue of same sex marriage in very public ways,
such as on Facebook and other social media, taking
very public stands against Church teaching. This
concerns me. It is not a minor thing to publicly
announce that one opposes the Church on an
important moral issue such as this when every time
we receive communion we are proclaiming that we
stand in communion with the Church and what she
believes and teaches.
So what am I saying? That no one ever has a
right to dissent from Church teaching? Is all the
thinking and discussing already done and all that is
left is for us to obediently believe? No. My point is
that each one of us needs to decide if we have the
courage to be Catholic with integrity in a society
that rejects not only the Church’s teaching authority
but the credibility of faith. We, like Caravaggio’s
Thomas, have become thoroughly modern in our
thought. We are increasingly comfortable with a
morality that doesn’t challenge anyone, but allows
everyone’s choice to be right for them. We have in
many cases drunk the Kool-Aid of relativism which
assumes that what is right for me may not be right
for you and precludes the possibility of any
objective moral truth. Highest value has been
placed on everyone being able to do their own
thing. But where is the truth in that.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus says to Pilate, “…for
this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.
Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my
voice.” And Pilate’s response: “What is truth?”
There is the question. From where are you deriving
your version of Truth? In a dialogue that has
unfolded on my Facebook page and has been shared
to the Sacred Heart page, I asked the question, “Are
your moral stances formed more by popular culture
or by your faith?” It is a question that we each need
to be challenged by, because none of us are
unaffected by the culture in which we live. Do you
begin from the position of the Church and seek to
understand it, to see if it is defensible and well
grounded? Or do you begin with doubt, with
skepticism that the Church would dare to pronounce
moral truth with authority when not everyone is
Catholic or even Christian. This is the modernity
that weakens us. It encourages us to dismiss moral
teaching before we even engage it.
Now, pretty much all I can do in the space of a
homily is to stir the pot, to make you
uncomfortable, to get you thinking. What we need
as a Church of thinking people is dialogue, the
opportunity to respectfully discuss, share, and
question together, beginning with the what and the
why of the Church’s moral teachings and bringing
in all that we are hearing in the media today. I
propose that we begin that dialogue this Wednesday
evening at 7:00 here in Church. All are invited.
The only rule is that it be a respectful dialogue. I
will begin by presenting briefly the Church’s
understanding of marriage and her stance on same
sex marriage, and then allow for dialogue to
happen. The goal is not that anyone would win an
argument. If you want to come to argue, please stay
home. If you want to look thoughtfully at the issue
considering your own experience of it, and the
experience of others in the light of the Church’s
faith, then this is for you. I don’t propose that it
will solve anything. I only hope that it will open us
to one another and to a deeper way of knowing,
…through faith.